I am he who eternally wills evil but eternally works good. Really.
I watched Peters address the Privileges Committee last night; as expected he continued to insist that he is the victim of a vast, all-powerful conspiracy. His attempts to refute Owen Glenn’s testimony were transparently feeble – but the questions put to him by the committee were equally weak, with the exception of the first question from Labour MP Paul Swain.
Swain got Peters to admit that he must have spoken to Glenn and provided him with Brian Henry’s contact details; Peters was extremely reluctant to admit this but was forced to concede that this ‘probably’ happened. Except for a confused conspiracy theory that somehow tied in Fay-Richwhite’s former lawyer with a horse that failed to perform at the Melbourne Cup that’s all the ‘All-Powerful Privileges Committee’ managed to wring out of Peters.
Seeing Peters in the flesh was an interesting experience though: even at this rather pathetic stage of his career his voice and presence fills the room; he certainly has that weird, indefinable charisma that it seems some people are equipped with at birth.
When Owen Glenn was busy blow-torching the Labour Party over the last few days he took care to point out that he thought Peters was still a good bloke and a ‘forthright kind of guy’. Some of the political journalists I’ve spoken to about Peters have likewise told me that they like him and get on well with him, and, in a rather different class, Condi Rice seems to be genuinely fond of the guy.
I wonder if this has influenced Clark’s judgment over the months, if the Prime Minister was also beguiled by Peters evident charm. When you look at the facts its impossible to believe that Peters could have convinced Clark he had not received a donation from Glenn, but when you sit there in the room and watch Winston insist with absolute conviction that this was the case you do wonder if she was sweet-talked into her current position, that like so many other very intelligent people she liked and trusted Peters on an irrational, reptilian brain level.
Its hard to quantify the power of personal charisma on history: the Texan journalist Robert Draper, who wrote a biography of George W Bush was struck by the strong impression the president made in person:
But one thing that became meaningful to me in doing that book is that I interviewed people who have been working for Bush over the years — they love this guy. I don’t just mean that they admire him. I don’t just mean they are in awe of him. I mean they really love him and would take a bullet for him. I’ve spent a lot of time now with a lot of elected officials and the people who work for them, and you can’t always say that about them.
How did Bush convince people of the calibre of Tony Blair and Colin Powell to act against their own interests – destroy their reputations and careers – to advance his own agenda? Surely he didn’t overwhelm them intellectually. It’s also hard to imagine Peters managed to fast-talk his way past Clarks political instincts. But what if, like Glenn, Condi Rice and so many New Zealand voters, she just plain liked the guy?
